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2,000 children form the shape of a lion’s head on the beach in Durban, South Africa, during the 2011 COP17 climate conference. By Oxfam International, via Flickr.

More than one black South African has told me that they saw the environment as a “white people’s issue” when they were cutting their activist teeth in the struggle against apartheid. So, in 2012, how does Greenpeace — which has historically been associated with not only white people, but often with furry, white animals — grow roots on a continent where environmental devastation has often been perpetrated by Westerners?

“We don’t have the polar bear costumes here,” said Fiona Musana, communications director of Greenpeace Africa, which was established in November 2008. Instead of emphasizing the global campaign against drilling in the Arctic, the organization works to build local partnerships and show how environmental issues are already threatening Africans’ survival. “Dialogue is very important to us,” explained Musana, who traced this priority to the African concept of ubuntu, which defines our humanity through our relationship to others.

Focusing on relationships, for example, was key to the organization’s recent success in limiting the number of giant foreign trawlers fishing off the coast of Senegal, where local small-scale fishermen were being hurt by the decimation of marine life. Musana explained that when they first approached the fishermen about collaborating, “we had to humble ourselves in a way and not just appear to be a huge global organization that is coming to save you.” Understanding the significance of fish in Senegalese culture was important for the group’s mostly African staff. “We said, ‘We do know how dear fish are — for your livelihood, for your culture, for your future — and we really would like to work together,’” recalled Musana. Since the Senegalese government revoked 29 trawling licenses in May, local fishermen — whose own practices are sustainable — have seen an immediate increase in their catches.

In South Africa, the challenge is to talk about energy policy in ways that feel as directly relevant to people’s everyday lives as fish are for fishermen. Africa is predicted to bear the burden of climate change far out of proportion to its contributions to it. The 2011 Greenpeace Africa video “Weather Gods” asserts that 180 million Sub-Saharan Africans may die in the 21st century as a result of climate change, though Musana said the statistical predictions have gotten worse since the 2007 Food and Agriculture Organization report on which that number was based.

Despite this shocking statistic, climate change can sound abstract, and average people do not necessarily understand how South Africa’s decision to build two of the world’s largest new coal-burning plants will contribute to the changes in weather that farmers are already experiencing. Mbong A. Fokwa Tsafack, Greenpeace Africa’s communications manager, noted that their campaign against the enormous Kusile and Medupi coal plants did not initially focus on the fact that they would suck water away from local communities where water is already scarce. “Burning coal has an impact on water,” she explained. By focusing on that aspect, “increasingly people can see ways in which what we’re talking about relates to them.”

When they were filming “Weather Gods,” Fokwa Tsafack explained that they had to ask simple questions like, “Have you experienced changes in the weather patterns?” They found that rural people had indeed observed changes in the weather in the past five to ten years, though they did not necessarily understand its causes — which was also my experience traveling in both South Africa and Botswana, where I was repeatedly told that the rains had gotten unpredictable to the detriment of farmers.

Greenpeace Africa shows a special sensitivity to such economic concerns. Its organizers are campaigning against coal and nuclear in a context where millions of people still don’t have electricity, and many more can’t afford the electricity that is now technically available to them. Despite the new housing that has been built since Nelson Mandela was elected president in 1994, millions of people still live in tin shacks like the one that students at my university erected as a symbol of apartheid in the 1980s. Twenty-five percent unemployment is part of the problem, hence the organization’s effort to convince union leaders and other stakeholders that a green economy — harnessing South Africa’s abundant wind, sun and biomass potential — will be better for the country’s economy in the long run.

Despite the emphasis on dialogue, this is still Greenpeace. In the Mpumalanga Province of South Africa last fall, activists chained themselves to the gates of the enormous Kusile coal plant and hung a banner from a crane proclaiming, “Kusile: Climate Killer.” Three were arrested. Musana observed that South Africa’s history of struggle has taught people that if they want something, they need to protest — a spirit the organization hopes to mobilize in years to come.

Greenpeace’s International Director Kumi Naidoo is himself a South African and an early member of the Greenpeace Africa board. At a press conference Saturday on the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior, which was visiting Cape Town, he recalled courageous activists like Nelson Mandela, who served prison time on Robben Island not far off the shore where the ship was docked. “We have to challenge the power of those who are benefiting from the current system,” argued Naidoo. “And let’s be very clear: the reason the system is surviving is that there are people in the oil and coal and gas sectors, and their allies in government, that are actually making tons of money from the current system.”

Referring to a new fishing campaign they are launching off the eastern coast of Africa, Naidoo noted, “In the past we probably would have focused on it more from a biodiversity point of view, but actually when we look at the connections between humanity’s survival on this planet and our consumption of resources, they are fundamentally connected.” Helping people to see the connections — their connections to each other and to the threatened earth — is a key part of the work of Greenpeace Africa.

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Eileen Flanagan is a writer, speaker and activist. Her newest book will be published in March 2015, Renewable: One Woman's Search for Simplicity, Faithfulness, and Hope. It's the story of how a Quaker mother of two gave up her guilt about not living simply enough to become a leader of nonviolent direct action. She now serves as clerk of the board of Earth Quaker Action Team.

9 comments

As much as I appreciate your article, it comes from one perspective, that of Greenpeace Africa. There are many more grassroot African environmental organizations whose input would of also been constructive in determining the way ahead for African environmentalists. Furthermore, speaking to the everyday man and women on the streets would also be productive in reaching a far better conclusion. As part of Greenpeace for the past 10 years I dont feel that they are reaching out to all the goals of the African people and continent.

Surely would be true no matter what — that one article can’t encompass the concerns of the whole continent. Any thoughts that you have about other organizations or campaigns we should be looking at, though, would be most welcome!

Thanks for your perspective, Paaristha. Just so you know, I did speak with other environmentalists and had originally planned to write a piece on more than one group but found that I had way too much material for one story. I decided to focus on Greenpeace Africa both because I was impressed with what they were doing and because I thought it an interesting challenge to make a global and mostly western organization relevant in Africa. That said, as a relatively new organization, I’d be surprised if they were able to work on “all the goals of the African people and continent,” which is quite a tall order.

I appreciate Eileen reporting on environmental campaigning in Africa. It’s hard for many people outside the continent to learn what’s really going on there, since the global media pay so much more attention to the West and even Asia. Readers might like to know about an additional source of information, the Global Nonviolent Action Database. From 2001-06 South Africans protested a heavily polluting paper mill in Durban. The struggle of the Ogani people in Nigeria against Shell Oil in the early ’90s is famous, but how many know about the 2002 struggle by Nigerian women against Shell? And people with a wider interest in Africans’ struggles for justice and democracy can visit the map on the database that has “push-points” on the many countries included in the database (http://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu).

Thanks to you I’ll now ask students to add the case of the fishermen winning their campaign in Senegal!

I am LOVING this fruitful exchange about environmentalism in Africa. Though the Global Database certainly does a good beginning job of chronicling examples, and this article provides an excellent addition, there are MANY MANY recent examples of vital initiatives from throughout the African continent. Since Nigeria is mentioned in the recent back-and-forth here, and a new book from leading Nigerian activist Nimmo Bassey has just come out, I’d highly recommend “To Cook a Continent: Destructive Extraction and the Climate Crisis in Africa” (http://fahamubooks.org/book/?GCOI=90638100628980) as one place to continue. And I agree with Eileen that Waging Nonviolence is an essential site for even more information on these and related topics.

Thanks Eileen. I look forward to many more articles and speaking engagements to come as you bring us your experience and encourage us all to learn more about the impact of our personal and collective choices upon those who live very low on the energy consumption ladder. Friends, if you get a chance to see Eileen’s photos of her trip, I encourage you to take it.

Although I admire the work of Greenpeace and of local Environment protection NGOs, I miss reports on the prime responsibility of African governments for the problems and for sustainable solutions. For instance on fighting desertification, deforestation, proper water sources (lakes, rivers, sea) management they are the ones ultimately responsible, is it not, including effectively regulating, supervising and correcting (including sanctioning) companies?

Also one key issue seems to be ignored, namely that of resolving land ownership and ensuring socio-democratic principles for access and use of land, which includes limiting ownership of land, water and coast line. Also self-sufficiency in food production depends on local situations; reducing the gap between egotistical enormously wealthy local citizens and masses of subsistence farmers.

For sustained environment management, local governance seems to be the only possible way forward. Extreme actions against individual companies easily get media attention and attract donations but do not prepare roads and channels towards a sustained global environment.

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